Lora Leigh - A Christmas Kiss

“I want you to leave,” she whispered, though in her heart she knew that wasn’t what she really wanted. She wanted him to hold her, to touch her, to ease the burning ache that filled her soul.

He stared back at her for long, bleak moments before nodding sharply.

“This time,” he stated with a hint of anger. “This time I will, Jess. Don’t expect it next time.”

He turned on his heel and left the room. Seconds later she heard the front door close.

She collapsed on the pretty quilted bedspread covering her bed and breathed out with a long, weary sigh. He wouldn’t promise he would leave the next time. She was living on borrowed time where the mating heat was concerned, and she knew it. The problem was, she had a feeling that after today’s attack, she was living on borrowed time, period.

It’s escalating.” Hawke stepped into Alpha Gunnar’s of “fice and faced off with not just his own alpha, Wolfe, but his second-in-command, Jacob Arlington, and Haven’s head of security, Aiden Chance.

The three powerful Wolf Breeds were a force to be reckoned with. They were perhaps the most powerful men Hawke knew, Breed or human. They had gathered together the Wolf Breeds, fought for a home, secured it, ensured it before ever revealing who they were or what they intended within their own community.

They had brought peace and safety to the people who followed him.

“We knew it would eventually.” Wolfe leaned back in his chair as he breathed out a hard sigh. “I’m surprised it’s taken them this long.”

“She locked her bodyguard in the basement before going out this afternoon,” Hawke revealed. “We can’t depend on her to watch her own back.”

“Telling her the truth might work.” Jacob Arlington, one of the few Breeds with the coloring of the red wolf rather than the gray or black, spoke up then. “She might care more about her own life if she was aware that it was actually in danger.”

Hawke threw him a hard glare. “I believe I was ordered to keep that information to myself for the time being.” He turned back to Wolfe. “That time is up, Wolfe. It’s now time for a measure of honesty with her. I’ll lose her otherwise.”

Wolfe stared back at him silently for long moments before he began to shake his head.

“Don’t make me ignore a direct order, Wolfe,” Hawke suggested, feeling the animal he was inside rising to the surface. “We’ll all regret it.”

He’d followed medical as well as security advice for a year now. He’d stayed away from his mate while she was confined, did nothing to risk the mating heat that would have demanded her release. He gave the pack a chance to secure itself, to determine the extent of damage that had been caused by her treason. When it was discovered that she had been drugged, he had heeded medical advice and kept his distance even after her release to ensure that all the drug was out of her system before the mating heat began.

He had taken all measures to protect his mate. He himself had stood at her door countless days and nights to make certain that her security wasn’t compromised. To make sure that she was safe. He had listened to her cry, listened to her whisper his name; he had listened to her pray to God for answers when she couldn’t figure out why she had betrayed the people she had sworn to protect.

He had ached with her. His eyes had grown damp with her tears; rage had eaten him alive through those months. And now, to think his alpha would suggest he stay away from her longer, when a threat to her life was clear, caused the wolf he was created from to snarl in fury.

“I would never suggest you refrain from giving her the truth that will protect her now, Hawke.” Wolfe surprised him with the statement. “I was merely going to say that perhaps a mistake has been made in keeping the information from her this long. She’s clearly in danger, just as we’ve suspected. Arm her with the truth and perhaps we can regain the loyalty we lost in her when we had her confined.”

Hawke’s lips thinned at the continuance. It was the Tribunal’s belief that they had lost Jessica’s loyalty because of their need to confine her, to lock her away from the Breeds as well as from her own people. Hawke didn’t believe that. Not once had Jessica tried to escape in the months that she had been free. She had sought solitude. She had sought moments when eyes weren’t watching her. But she had never indicated a need to escape, or indicated anger with the Breeds in general. It was more an anger directed toward Hawke.

“I’m pulling in a team from the Coyote base,” Aiden informed him. “It will be done quietly, and they’ll be placed on protective covert detail around her. We know Haven is being watched. This way, whoever is watching will believe we’ve become lax about her safety.” Aiden leaned forward intently. “We need to capture her would-be assassin, Hawke. There were men we didn’t catch earlier this year with the pure blood society we disbanded. We need the information they have, as well as the resources they’re using. She’s our only link to them.”

“Her safety will not be compromised in this quest of yours, Aiden,” Hawke growled, the animalistic rumble of his voice burring his words. “I’ve held back the mating heat, but nothing will change the fact that she is my mate.”

Aiden nodded at the statement as he turned back to Wolfe.

“I’m claiming my mate.” Hawke stared his alpha down then. “I’ve given you the time you needed, Wolfe. Jessica Raines is my mate. I’ll go without her no longer.”

Wolfe shared a look with his second-in-command before turning back to Hawke with a short nod. “I appreciate your trust in me, Hawke. You’ve denied yourself when others wouldn’t have, and given us the time we needed to find answers rather than giving her her freedom based on law. It tells me more than words can say about the loyalty you give to the Breeds.”

“My loyalty was to her,” Hawke snapped. “My mate was no traitor. There was only one way to prove it. It’s been proven. Now, I’ll have what’s mine.”

She should have known Hawke wouldn’t stay away long. The bodyguard he had left outside the house was male. She had noticed both during and after her release that it was a very rare occurrence for a male of either Breed or human persuasion to come around her.

She had female bodyguards. Her doctor was female. Her visitors, namely the alpha’s mate, Hope, or his second-in-command’s wife, Faith. Occasionally, Charity Chance visited, but since the birth of her and Aiden’s son, she hadn’t been by.

She watched the Range Rover pull into the small grav eled driveway in front of the cabin she had been given, and Hawke stepped out. As arrogant as any man could be, as handsome as sin, he stood beneath the falling snow like a force of nature daring the elements to come after him.

Daring anyone to come after him or to oppose him.

He was an integral part of Haven’s security team. He had been an advisor and security leader in the security and communications station where she had worked a little more than a year ago. He had been firm and honest, but he hadn’t always been easy to work with. He didn’t suffer fools easily, and he didn’t think twice about physically throwing out anyone not performing up to standards.

Did he still oversee security there? she wondered. She realized she had no idea what he did now. She saw him driving through the compound often, stopping, talking to the security teams, directing them to different areas or joking with them. Though she realized she hadn’t seen a smile on his face since she had been released.

He had often smiled at her when she worked security for the Breeds. Cautious little half smiles, as though he hadn’t known how to express his amusement with her shy jokes or at her attempts to flirt with him.

God, she had so fallen in love with him, she realized. Those months she had spent working with him, sharing the quiet lunches in the small garden behind the security center, she had fallen irrevocably in love.

He hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t touched her. He had been courteous, chivalrous. Something she had never known with anyone else. He was larger than life, and the wound she had inflicted on the fragile relationship they had been building had gone deep. In both of them.

She had known, even then, about mating heat. It was hard not to know when working so closely with the Breeds. And she had known the signs of it. It had been building between them. It would have taken no more than a kiss, perhaps a touch, and it would have flamed to life like a wildfire out of control, as Faith had described it.

Faith, Hope and Charity had been brutally honest with her about the mating heat. Despite the fact that she had been called a traitor, they hadn’t held back when she had questioned them about it.

As Hawke walked to her front door, she folded her arms over the thick sweater that covered her breasts and wondered about that. Why had they been so honest with her when she was suspected to be a traitor?

Of course, if she had been convicted of her crimes, it wasn’t as though the world would have had a chance to hear her side of the story. There would have been no lawyers, and no defense. Breed Law was brutally clear. The papers she had signed in agreeing to it had laid it out in succinct layman’s terms. She had agreed to an execution if she ever betrayed the Breeds. And she had signed it, knowing she would never willingly betray them.

She had learned that there was that one little factor though. Unwillingness. The drug her father had slipped into her system had given her little choice.

The front door opened with an air of arrogance and purpose that personified the man that stepped inside.

He carried a bag under one arm. Shifting it in his grip, he turned to close and lock the door.

Jessica cocked her head to the side. More gifts? He had sent her clothes, shoes, boots and coats since her release. During her captivity he had sent her food from her favorite fast-food restaurant, and soft outfits that had kept her warm in the sterile cell in which she had been confined.

He was always sending gifts. This was the first time he had brought any with him.

“We need to talk.”

Her brows lifted as he turned and walked into the kitchen after making the brusque statement.

She followed him anyway, despite the arrogance that had her hackles rising.

Stepping into the kitchen, she watched as he sat the bag on the kitchen table and pulled the contents free. A bag of regular coffee, a six-pack of soda, her favorite chocolate cookies and a small clear bottle of what appeared to be capsules, a drug of some sort.

“What exactly do we need to talk about?” She was almost salivating for that coffee. It was her favorite brand.

“These.” He sat the bottle of pills prominently in front of the enticing caffeine and chocolate-laced goodies.

Her brows lifted again. “And they are?”

“Hormonal treatments for mating heat,” he stated, his expression hard, almost forbidding, as he stared back at her with those odd, yellowish brown eyes. “They’re for the more uncomfortable symptoms. You also need to decide if you want to take the additional treatment to prevent pregnancy.” He pulled another bottle from his shirt pocket and sat it beside the first.

Jessica felt her heart rate increase. Suddenly, it was pounding against her chest, blood racing through her system and need beginning to burn in areas that she normally tried to ignore.

Between her thighs her clit became swollen and her juices began to dampen the folds of her sex. She could feel lust pouring into her system and emotions she didn’t want to face tearing through her mind.

“Have it all figured out, don’t you?” she whispered as she stared back at him. “Whether I want this or not, it’s going to happen?”

He breathed in slowly, deeply. “You’re my mate, Jessica. We both know what that means. I’ve tried to stay away from you. I’ve tried to wait until the time was right to court you, to give you a chance to accept what it means.”

“Time?” She gave a hard, bitter laugh. “I was jailed, Hawke. You didn’t even visit. I’ve rarely seen you since my release. Perhaps you need to figure out exactly what it means to court a woman before you decide to do it.”

His jaw tightened, the muscle bunching almost violently as she watched him clench his teeth.

“I would have given us more time.” He seemed to push the words past his throat. “Before I began to court you, I wanted to ensure your protection, your safety. And your freedom.” He bit the last word out almost angrily. “I wanted you to choose me. I didn’t want to force the heat.”